Microsoft: virtualization not mature enough for home Vista users

The license agreement for Vista Home and Vista Home Premium forbids running …

In general, nobody reads end-user license agreements (EULAs). They are long, boring, and full of legalese that few people care to take the time to understand. Occasionally, however, unusual wordings in EULAs are used to question a company's policies and intentions, especially when that company is Microsoft. The latest round of EULA analyzing revolves around Windows Vista Home and Home Premium editions, which contain a sentence forbidding users from running that software under virtual machines. The Ultimate, Business and Enterprise editions of Vista contain no such limitation.

When asked why this discrepancy existed, a Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet Asia that virtualization technology was not "mature" enough for home users, despite its increasing implementation in business and server environments. The exact line in the EULA for Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium reads:

USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.

This sentence makes no mention of whether virtualization or emulation technology is "mature" or not, and makes no value judgement about running operating systems in a virtual machine, other than to say that you aren't allowed to do it. One thing to note is that this only applies to retail and OEM licensing: copies that are downloaded via MSDN do not have this restriction.

In the absence of any sensible explanation from Microsoft (the "maturity" argument doesn't seem to qualify) the conspiracy theorists have come up with all sorts of wild and wooly ideas, such as an "Apple and Linux tax" to try and squeeze more money from users of those operating systems. But such claims don't really stand up to close scrutiny. Macintosh users can always install Vista in a dual-boot configuration, an option that is less expensive than purchasing a VM package like Parallels. And both Macintosh and Linux users who need to run Win32 applications would find it much easier (and even less expensive) to run XP in a virtual machine instead. The extra benefits of Vista, such as the Aero Glass visual effects, tend not to work at all under virtual machines, and Vista's higher RAM requirements mean extra overhead for the VM. And, of course, Vista itself has no problem hosting any number of virtualization programs.

A more likely but less exciting explanation is that Microsoft simply wanted to provide more reasons for people to choose the more expensive versions of Vista, in much the same way as XP Home wouldn't support multiple processors or joining a domain. Nevertheless, the "Apple Tax" people likely have it half right. This is about generating revenue. In fact, if you've been paying attention, you've noticed that Microsoft is now segmenting its operating system product more than ever. A major drive behind this is simple monetization. Whether it's charging more to get Aero Glass, Media Center Functionality, BitLocker, joining an Active Directory, or even just adding new smiley faces to Windows Live Messenger, the word of the day at Redmond appears to be: "can we charge for that?"